AllFreeNovel
Share Us
No.
Chase's protective instincts warred with the pain and injury that had taken him down. He couldn't fail her like this. He couldn't let Tavia face the wrath of Dragos's killing machine all alone.
He bellowed past the anguish of his searing lungs and the dense fog of unconsciousness that was rising up to engulf him. In the split second the Hunter moved in above him for the kill, Chase rolled out of the blade's path and came up fast to his feet. The assassin swung toward him, dagger about to strike again, cold eyes narrowed in the open space of the Hunter's black head covering.
And there was Tavia too, standing behind the massive Gen One in the blink of an eye. Her bright green irises glittered with flashes of amber now. The smooth angles of her face were drawn tight across her delicate bones. Chase saw the purpose in her transforming gaze and tried to dissuade her with a subtle shake of his head.
A command she flatly ignored.
Lips parted over the elongated tips of her fangs, she reached out with lightning-quick speed to grab the Hunter's upraised hand. She caught it in both of hers and wrenched it, a savage twist of motion. Bone and tendons gave up with an audible crack. As his blade tumbled to the floor, the assassin hissed, whirling on her like a viper.
His useless hand drooping at his side, the Hunter lashed out with the other and took hold of Tavia by the front of her throat. Only then did the cold assassin's training slip its tether. His fangs punched out from his gums as he bore down on Tavia, his fingers clamped ruthlessly around her neck.
Chase's own rage went nuclear. The sight of her gasping and sputtering, clawing at the punishing vise that was squeezing the life from her, put him in motion like nothing ever had before.
He lunged for his dropped pistol and came up firing, his arm steady despite the pain in his chest and the feral roar of his veins. Merciless, Chase plugged round after round into the Hunter's head. The skull splintered, spraying Tavia with blood and gore as the big Gen One staggered under the assault and, finally, dropped in a motionless heap at her feet.
TAVIA STARED at the dead Breed male, inhaling on shallow gasps, all she could manage after the bruising hold that would have crushed the life from her if not for Chase. She could taste blood on her lips, could smell it in her hair and on her skin and clothes. It turned her stomach, but at the same time it roused a dark power deep inside her.
If she had wanted to deny it before, now there was no room for doubt.
She was one of them - one of the Breed.
She felt that power living within her, a power that gave her strength to stand by without flinching as Chase stalked forward and chambered the last round in his pistol. He eyed the assassin with contempt, toeing the ruined head to expose a thick black collar that ringed the dead male's neck. Chase took aim on that collar and fired the final bullet at it, point blank.
A flash of light - impossibly bright - exploded all around them. Immediately Tavia felt Chase's body shielding her, his strong arms wrapped around her as the nimbus of pure white light shot out then vanished just as quickly. Chase's heat lingered only a moment longer than that, safe and comforting. Then it too was gone.
"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice rough, urgent.
She looked down at the head that was now severed from its body and smoldering. "I'm all right," she said, even though her throat felt raw, her voice a sandpaper growl when she tried to speak. "Wh-what about you?"
Her fangs throbbed at the scent of his spilling blood, which leaked from the stab wound in his side. Chase shrugged off his injury with little more than a grimace. "I'll survive." He grabbed her hand and steered her away from the carnage.
"That light," she said as she ran along beside him. "What did you do? What came out of that collar?"
"UV rays. Dragos makes his Hunters wear obedience devices around their necks. Any tampering or damage trips the ultraviolet detonator."
"Good to know," she said, still astonished and shaken by all she'd witnessed. She took one last glance behind them as Chase guided her into the corridor with him. "How many Hunters does Dragos have?"
Chase grunted. "Too damn many."
Gunfire sounded from somewhere near the back of the clinic, a rapid hail of shots that echoed all the way into Tavia's bones. "Mathias." Chase swore under his breath. "I won't leave him behind."
Tavia nodded. "I'm coming with you."
He didn't argue this time. Together they raced down the long corridor of the clinic.
They found Mathias Rowan limping out from a back room, fresh blood smeared in a trail behind him. His head was bleeding profusely, and his left leg dragged stiffly as he hobbled toward them. "Get out! Get out now! There's a bomb in the server room," he shouted, waving them back. "I killed the two Minions who set it, but the timer is counting down fast. We have to get out of here now!"
They ran for the front window of the clinic and had barely cleared the building before a low rumble stirred deep underground. It expanded, in both vibration and roar, growing stronger as the three hurried across the snow-filled meadow.
The blast that followed was bone-rattling.
Fire lit the night sky as Dr. Lewis's clinic - and all its decades of secrets and lies - erupted in a ball of flames and smoke and flying debris.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE ANTIQUE CHAIR in Dragos's island lair had been in his possession for more than a century. An uncomfortable monstrosity, it was a throne carved of six-hundred-year-old Wallachian hardwood and acquired from an old church in the southwestern Transylvanian Alps. Legend had it that the polished seat and dragon's-head arms had once held the weight of a bloodthirsty medieval ruler whose name instilled fear in most humans even to this day.
